DARE TO TRUST

A self-help book featuring accounts of channeled communication by empath, shamanic healer, management consultant, and debut author Wyss.

In 2003, the author believed that she was generally happy—so she was shocked when she had a self-destructive urge to deliberately wreck her car. Soon, she writes, she began receiving messages from spirits, and she recalled similar experiences as a child. After this, Wyss pursued studies in business-coaching and the alternative-healing arts. In 2014, after suffering a brain injury, she persevered through a 10-day training session for entrepreneurs, feeling throughout that she was enveloped by an invisible presence. Later, she says, she experienced a visit from “Mother Mary,” the mother of Jesus, asking her to work with spirits “to reconnect humans back to themselves…through your work in companies.” Wyss realized that her true vocation was as a shamanic healer in the corporate world. She changed her base of operations from Switzerland to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she continued her studies in shamanism while counseling others. Several chapters here, as well as the introduction, are attributed to spiritual beings—including the Archangel Michael, the aforementioned Mother Mary, Neptune, the spiritually enlightened being called Lady Nada, the Native American Medicine Bear, and “the Source.” They’re universal in their praise of Wyss while delivering the book’s simple messages, such as that one should trust oneself, seek enlightenment as much as possible, and endeavor to connect with the spiritual world. Overall, the brief text, organized into five parts (“The Journey Calls,” “Finding Inner Strength,” “The Wisdom of the Heart,” “An Empowered Life,” and “A New Beginning”), is clearly written. The author’s decision to organize the book thematically, however, rather than chronologically, does make the timeline of events a bit muddled at times. That said, the author provides dates throughout to help to orient the reader. Many of the chapters also open with inspirational quotes (such as Cicero’s “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others”), which help to provide intellectual support for the spiritual material.

The addition of spirit-channeling to basic spiritual messages makes this an offbeat offering in a crowded genre.